Monday, September 13, 2010

Graves matter

kw: genealogy, good finds, tools

I stumbled upon a very useful web site for certain genealogical information, Find a Grave. While it is often used to find graves of famous people, such as Paul Revere, it is most useful as a first place to look for information about the burial of a relative.

This shows the search I used to locate someone six generations back in my family, tree, Phebe Lamb (née Macy). This search returned four records, one of which was in the Lamb Cemetery, with the right date of death; see below:

This is a good example of a grave record for which a useful amount of information has been entered. The Lamb family was prominent, and has many descendants, so someone has not only taken a picture of the graveyard entrance, but also of the gravestone, a double stone for both Phebe and her husband John Lamb.

While a headstone date is not always accurate, it usually has the most accurate record of the date of death. It is at least a great starting point for pinning down the dates and locations of a person's life. I am very thankful to the people such as those of "Vermilion County Saving Graves" who make these records for all of us.